Make fish returns stand out

[Shadslinger]

I just purchased a echo map 73sv. This is my first unit with side imaging and down imaging. My main use for side imaging will be locating schools of bait or roaming schools of stripers. How should I adjust the brightness and contrast to make the soft fish returns stand out better? What about other settings? Leave set on auto? Looking for a good base to start at and learn from. Thanks

[Larry3215]

Auto is definitely the best place to start. About the only other thing I play with is brightness.

The thing is, sideview isnt the best way to see fish by a long shot. Its pretty much the worst. Schools will show up fairly well if they are tightly packed and/or large, but individual fish are not easy to see unless they are close to the boat and fairly large. Most of the time, they will only show as a single dot when further away, which makes them hard to tell from noise.

[LWINCHESTER2]

I assume you are talking about DownVu and SideVu since most people can recognize fish on 2d fairly well. Here is what I do and it works quite well.
1. Range. SideVu is pretty much to scale. The larger area you are looking at the smaller the fish will be. So the solution is to use a small scale. I set the range to just more than the bottom depth of the water I am in.
2. Background. Seeing individual fish and sometimes even schools is more difficult when shown against the bottom as the background as opposed to the water column as the background. Again the solution is setting the scale as in #1. Have to point out that this is where Panoptix shines. You can get a huge increase in the range where the backgound will be the water column instead of the bottom.
3. Mindset. Look for fish. Forget about structure.
4. Set the gain and contrast very very high. Like 95. This will make the show up very well in the water column. It will also bleach out the bottom, forcing you to ignore structure as the structure will not be recognizable.
5. Technique. Make your searches based on the range you set. It will work much better than you might think. Note the range left and right. For example, suppose you are in 40 FOW and set the range to 50. You will be covering 100 feet total, 50 left and 50 right. Make the first pass positioning the boat at your best guess of where the incline of the bank meets the bottom. If you make a second pass you can move over 100 ft. That's a lot of coverage.

Most of the time the fish you see roaming in open water will bite if you get the lure right in front of them.

Hope this helps.
LW

[Shadslinger]

Thank you both for your replies. Will definitely give your ideas a try. Fortunately stripers usually tend to roam in some fairly large schools and being a fairly large fish I'm hoping to be able to locate schools on side view somewhat easy.

[LWINCHESTER2]

You will!!!!

[MonteSS]

I have not been very successful with any brand unit finding suspended schools of fish in deeper water. If they are near the bottom you may see the fish or their shadow. Thats why Panoptix is so good for what you want.

[Larry3215]

This is the only screen shots I have with downview and sideview showing a large school of herring in deep water.

There were salmon and sea run cutthroat around but they dont show up except maybe as single dots.

03MAY16_1613_00.jpg03MAY16_1613_01.jpg

[LWINCHESTER2]

I got a zillion of these shots. Turn the gain and contrast up. Contrast 95+, Gain until the screen gets too cluttered then back off a bit. Most of these where done with the xd on the trolling motor. So sometimes you see a messy swish. Some of these are noisy and everybody likes a perfectly clean screen so you may not like them. You'll get over it as you reel them in.

[Larry3215]

Those are great shots! Ive been resisting turning things up past the point where the bottom gets washed out. Im gonna have to get over that :)

[MonteSS]

Im sure he means to the side of the boat and not under it. You dont need side view for that.

[Larry3215]

Actually, with sideview, you have no idea if the fish are under or to the side or somewhere in between unless they show up on both sides of the screen or are throwing a shadow on the bottom. See my sidescan image above. At first glance it looks like that bait ball stretches from 100 to 175 ft off to the right side of the boat. Thats not true though. Its actually 100 to 175 ft almost directly under the boat and barely to the side at all.

In those images above, if you see the same fish on both sides, its directly under the boat. If they are not mirrored on the other side, they could be anywhere in the water column.

[rocket man]

Winchester, I like how you split the side view in 2 windows. That is pretty cool . Im gonna have to remember that. Thanks

[LWINCHESTER2]

All of the sonar technologies have strengths and drawbacks. Traditionally the 2d points straight down and you have to take into account the width of the cone. Each different cone width has some application advantage. Lowrance 83 kHz is an extremely wide cone. It's real good to know you are in an area where there are fish. With it you don't have a clue where they are; just that they are the distance shown from the transducer. Often because of the width of the cone they will not be at the depth displayed. All side sonar is useful because it shows you stuff not shown on other applications. But like Larry said the graph is the distance from the transducer; not the depth of the fish. Additionally with the small front to back cone it will often let you quickly determine whether a blob is bait fish or catchable fish. DownVu type sonar does the same thing. That greater detail is great information. DownVu, Down Imaging, DownScan all have an inherent weakness. While the front to back is narrow the left to right is wide. They all say DOWN in their name but the fish shown on the screen will often not be under the boat but to one side or the other. That is where a 2d narrow cone helps tremendously to know if the fish are directly under you. Lowrance and Garmin use -3db as the spec for their 20 degree cone, but the Lowrance 20 degree is wider. Humminbird uses -10db as the spec for their 20 degree cone. For comparison purposes its more like 12-15 degrees. In shallow water the difference is not so noticable. For the wider 2d cones at 100 ft you can be jigging your arm off for a fish it is showing next to your jig when the fish don't even know a jig is there. Color helps on all of them. As the fish nears the center of the cone the color brightens letting you know it is closer to your lure. That helps.

This is where the Panoptix is different and better, showing both distance and depth. I think Panoptix, both down and front views, could be improved with an exaggerated scale near the boat. Spread out the 0-20 feet part, giving it more screen space to more easily tell more precisely how far away that fish is, especially for fish that are that close. The disadvantage of Panoptix is that it doesn't have the detail of most 2d screens and certainly not even close the DownVu, etc. There has been much ado over just who has precisely the best detail and for some people that is their most important criteria. Humminbird with their new MEGA will be in the lead for that. It's not a big deal for me. I need to know if what I am looking at is bait or catchable fish. Here I give the edge to the GT50 and GT51.

The biggest improvement to my fishing the last couple of years has been the 7610, GT8, GT50, GT51 and Panoptix. It is really amazing to me that on other boards that there are so many out there that still think it's smoke and mirrors.

[Shadslinger]

So am I correct in thinking the darker the background the more the fish will stand out. I've been using blue but thinking brown or copper may be better. Correct?

[LWINCHESTER2]

So am I correct in thinking the darker the background the more the fish will stand out. I've been using blue but thinking brown or copper may be better. Correct?

We are talking about two different things. When the side range extends beyond the depth that's where the color of the background comes into play. To see fish there you have to have the gain and contrast set just right to see fish there and as you move over varying terrain the adjustments have to be changed to get maximum visibility.

I am saying to forget that altogether. Turn the gain and contrast up to make the fish in the water column show up better. This bleaches out the background over the area you are talking about. Using my setting suggestions you will NOT see the fish there regardless of the color of the backgound.

Try this. Use the settings that most side imaging people recommend. Go fishing 100 times and record how many times you see and catch fish beyond the depth of the water column.

Now use my settings and go fishing 100 times and record how many times you see and catch those fish.

I am saying that percentagewise the method I have described will be much more successful. Keeping this in mind now go back and look at all the really great side imaging shots of fish where people are extolling the virtues of side imaging. Over 75% of these screenshots will be of fish in the water column; not fish shown against the background of the bottom. For me it is a matter of making the best use of my time to catch the most fish while I am on the water. This method has been much more successful for me.

I'm not saying it can't be done looking for fish against the background of the bottom. It can be and has been proven so. But it's not simple or easy. There are experts that offer classes in how to do it so you get it just right.

Of course the easiest and simplest method is skip all this and to buy Panoptix. It's far superior and much more successful.

[MonteSS]

Once again I assume Shadslinger wants to see a school of suspended baitfish or striper, lets say 50-100 feet to the side of the boat in deeper water. Side imaging will not show this and I dont want him to expect it will.

[11justin22]

Once again I assume Shadslinger wants to see a school of suspended baitfish or striper, lets say 50-100 feet to the side of the boat in deeper water. Side imaging will not show this and I dont want him to expect it will.

Sure it can....I do it all the time to find balls of baitfish. Individual fish is probably not going to happen but schools can certainly be seen.

[Shadslinger]

Yes as far as bleaching out the backgrounds to see the water column better why wouldn't you just use regular 2d sonar or down imaging. I've seen a few screenshots of stripers 75 to 100 feet off the side of the boat. I found several schools of bait myself easily 100 feet or more away my first time out. No doubt it can be done with the right settings. I'll get it with some time on the water. Thanks guys.

[LWINCHESTER2]

Yes as far as bleaching out the backgrounds to see the water column better why wouldn't you just use regular 2d sonar or down imaging. I've seen a few screenshots of stripers 75 to 100 feet off the side of the boat. I found several schools of bait myself easily 100 feet or more away my first time out. No doubt it can be done with the right settings. I'll get it with some time on the water. Thanks guys.

Two reasons. Say I'm in 150 FOW and walleye are holding 80-90 feet deep. First the obvious, to know which side of the boat they are on. And second, since the front to back cone is so small I would know quite precisely the direction from the transducer. It's enough to either cast to them or turn the boat to get over them. They are far enough to the side to be out of the cone of most 2d except maybe not Lowrance 83Khz.

Good question.

[puhlw]

So don't crucify me for this, maybe I don't understand how to read my graph.

My understanding on the side view screen was that the black section was what is under the boat (essentially down scan) and the colored section off to the sides was the side scan portion. If you turn up the gain to blow out the colored section (structure) and just look at the black center area, isn't that the same as just running downscan?